absolutely extraordinary

There is no such thing as an ordinary day.

I wake up. I breathe in and out, and the sun is up, sending the earth warm, passionate kisses that take just eight minutes to reach our lips, here on planet earth. Still warm after traversing the vastness of the frozen vacuum of space-- you can still taste it like nectar.

I make coffee. And my sister plays the piano. And I kiss my parents on the cheek. I can hear my mom typing in the other room, and a lawnmower two doors down. Fresh cut grass. Papers all stacked up beside my laptop.

And I breathe in and out. And it's morning. And it's not an ordinary day.

We only know an ordinary, because we've mislabeled 'greatness'. A number, a statistic-- a viral something out of reach, for them and not us-- limelight on my brand name, with my hair looking like a beauty queen and my name on the sidebar of twitter, no--

Maybe greatness? Is getting up every morning. And breathing in and out.

And doing the things that are ordinary.

I sit down at the dining room table with my coffee, and sometimes I just think for awhile, with my chin propped up in my fists and my eyes tracing along the outline of the skylight. Clouds live up in that skylight. Other times, I'll open my laptop and I'll adopt a resolve and my fingers will fall across the keyboard and words will come out, or they won't. Or I'll take a notebook and I'll write about something in my head that I want to drag out of hiding and examine with my own eyes. I'll make things there, at that table. Things on paper or otherwise-- but things are made.

Maybe it's raining that day, maybe it's not raining. Maybe I have a lot of work to do that day, or maybe I have nothing more than a serious interest in draining the sun's warmth down into my skin.

Things we consider 'great'-- the big things. Are they really big things? Or like all matter, are they made up entirely of little bits and pieces of everything we ever overlooked? If we were to tear the sheet off greatness, would we find a mathematical equation with the inevitable solution of success, sensation and achievement--

or would we find a hundred thousand quiet mornings, empty coffee cups, slow kisses, emails, afternoons, whispers, laughter and questions in the dark?

the ordinary are the atoms of the great; the laminin between our skin, cells, bones, passion and dreams. We're not parts and pieces, but a fusion of beautiful mess. Each and every particle a violent mash-up, an exotic drink of something a little like falling in love.

If this is true, and I think it is-- if greatness is married to the ordinary, composed like a good poem, in places that are perhaps darker or more unexpected, greatness cannot be itself without the everyday and the familiar. Just as King eloquently brought to the attention of a burning, seething world that "we cannot be ourselves without other selves". The thread of commonality runs not only deep in our blood but also in our dreams and the deepest desires of our souls.

My dream, in some way far less remote than we would imagine, is tied to yours.

Waking up every morning.

Coffee.

Breathing in. Breathing out.

Somehow it's not the getting to hear someone tell me that they love me, but the getting to tell someone I absolutely love and adore them. It's the thinking about one person all day, and not being sure how to get them out of your head.

It's doing the things that are difficult, even when we don't think anyone understands or sees that we're trying-- they do. And even if they don't, stop worrying about it. Because it often doesn't matter.

The sun came up today. People used to sacrifice humans to make sure that would happen. When you watch the sun come up, if you ever have, you're watching a wrecking ball of ancient central American culture claw it's way up over the earth. But it doesn't mean death anymore-- it means life. Because you and I live in a new place: the edge of a new age rapidly unfolding with all the zest of a well-formed break, rushing up into our crumbling excuses for sandcastles to invite us out into something a bit deeper.

I have a hard time finding the right words to explains protons, neutrons and quarks-- how that all works.

But I have an even harder time finding the right words to explain what it feels like to stay up all night by the fire with someone. Somehow even something like quantum physics, or space, can pale quite rapidly when compared alongside the unfathomable complexity of what it feels like to hold someone's hand. And yet our science and philosophy includes physiology and at the same time excludes hand holding.

We have books on physics-- I can find libraries and studies full of them, but I've yet to read a book that even begins to answer my questions about how someone's fingers can fit so perfectly between my own.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that "to be great is to be misunderstood." And here we nod-- like you do.

But maybe that's not even the point anymore. Maybe it's more in that greatness itself has been misunderstood.

To overlook the parts and mechanics of an intricate machine is to allow for a gross under use of its full potential. Life is too childlike and demanding to be overlooked in the name of pursuing a socially established state of idealism. To miss its functions, the way its gears spin behind the glossy pools of nebulae that paint the color in your eyes, would be to miss the glory upon which everything else rests.

Like sheets spread out across a mattress, so unfurls and rests the very inhales, exhales, coffee and quiet mornings of humanity. And then our science and theory and philosophy after that. But never before coffee, kisses or listening to your sister play the piano in the other room. The greatness of the universe lays entangled with the things we deem basic: they hold hands and they kiss. They can never be distinguished as separate, but may perhaps allow their astounding individualism to be detected from time to time as one can taste salt in ocean water, and yet cannot pull the two apart.

Everything that happens to us, everyday-- all the common, sweet nothings, blur the line we've created in our futile nearsightedness, and beg from us something that comes only as a conclusion, after a hundred thousand questions have been asked, and blood, sweat, tears and much oxygen has been spilled. A quiet, gentle and yet somehow scandalizing conclusion that is nothing more or less than:

8 people commented on this post.

Okay. How do I say this.... You could go to TED. And read everything on this (electronic) piece of paper. And get the most outrageous uproar of a standing ovation. Because this piece is INCREDIBLE. Never, ever, ever allow this gem of brilliance be lost in the deep dark clutches of Google's very realistic RSS fists.This is beautiful. You are beautiful. And I especially loved the part about the ocean water. Gloriously nuance. In the most bright and delicious way ever. xxBeez

I am so passionate about this. Your words hit me right in the heart and travel through my whole being. I have been waiting for this single post for who-knows-how-long; I didn't even know that I was searching for it, but this has honestly just answered so many of my questions and has explained my loss of connection with the every-day while refueling my passion for mornings and seemingly useless moments and smiles and sheets and opening blinds and singing in the car and messy hair and t-shirts and every single small part that makes up the every-day all in one.Thank you, you have captured my feelings entirely. Your words are so beautiful, keep writing and take them somewhere, I want to read them forever.

comments are like dark chocolate and they make this kid way happy. I love hearing from you guys! (check back because I reply...and I love checking out your blogs, so don't leave me without a link to yours!) ♥